Gamble Roggers Florida State park

dustin0352 · Post by **dustin0352** » Mon May 03, 2010 12:44 am

The wife and I finaly made it out to one of the local state parks today. Gamble Roggers state park is a pretty neat little park. It only had one nature trail that at the begining looked to be like every other nature trail around my area. Little did I know.....

The entrance to the trail.

The very pretty Hammock/canopy of the trail. Notice all the shade.. my hopes of finding cacti are now fading. But still very pretty area(thats the wife in photo)

After about 1/2 mile I started to get a little bored with the canopy stuff and started to play around lol

Then the site of a nice Yucca started bringing the excitement back!

After the Yucca there was another 1/2 mile of canopy areas, and then all of the sudden the trail opened up to a huge area that looked like a perfect area to find wild cacti. And sure enough I struck gold!

By the time we found this open area we had to start heading back, so only had about 10 min there. Next weekend we are going back to explore more of it. The area is huge and we only got to see about 1/5 of it. I am now happy to have found a natural area where cacti are growing wild in my area of Florida!!!

apacholek10 · Post by **apacholek10** » Mon May 03, 2010 1:26 am

Looks pretty cool! I'll have to travel a little south sometime to check it out. Glad you found some Cacti!

Saguaro123 · Post by **Saguaro123** » Mon May 03, 2010 5:09 am

Do you know what Opuntia sp. those are?

Post by **daiv** » Mon May 03, 2010 1:53 pm

Hey that's neat. I am very curious to find out what species that is. I don't think it is humifusa, but then again I don't know if my concept of O. humifusa is even correct.

The pic behind the tree made me laugh!

kevin63129 · Post by **kevin63129** » Tue May 04, 2010 5:20 am

Nice opuntia shot Dustin.

Andy_CT · Post by **Andy_CT** » Tue May 04, 2010 11:27 am

daiv wrote:Hey that's neat. I am very curious to find out what species that is. I don't think it is humifusa, but then again I don't know if my concept of O. humifusa is even correct.

I think they are O. humifusa. The second one could be the other one that is similar but grows more upright, I forget the name.

Peterthecactusguy · Post by **Peterthecactusguy** » Wed May 05, 2010 1:01 am

Dustin,
Nice. I find it interesting to see native cacti in other places. Arizona has tons of native cacti. Some even not so native that are growing everywhere. With my census job I have seen a lot of nice Indian Ficus and Cows Tongue PP lately!

I do not know what type those are by they are nice!:)

dustin0352 · Post by **dustin0352** » Thu May 06, 2010 11:17 pm

Thanks all, yea I havent a clue what species they are nor do the park rangers. I asked them upon entering the park if there were any cacti in the area and they seemed dumbfounded. I do hope to return this weekend to extend the search!

Harriet · Post by **Harriet** » Fri May 07, 2010 4:03 pm

Cool. I'm going to have to check that one out!

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Fri May 07, 2010 5:26 pm

Those are great looking Opuntias. Years ago, there were thought to be several species of Opuntia in Florida, but I think many of those have since been combined under dillenii. Even dillenii has been considered by some to be a tropical form of humifusa.

Anyway, I like the form of these. Great flowers too.

peterb